little eco footprints

Starting small

I’ve been dreaming of a kitchen garden bursting with herbs, rows upon rows of seasonal produce, and a food forest overflowing with citrus, berries and nuts.

We are moving from our urban Newcastle home "up the valley" to a small rural Hunter Valley property for a tree change. I’m excited that I’ll have ample space to grow food. However, my initial enthusiasm has morphed into overwhelm. There’s a water supply to organise, our soil is degraded and hydrophobic and I somehow need to protect our garden from rabbits and kangaroos.

Not knowing where to start, I contact local sustainable farming guru Mark Brown of Purple Pear Farm for advice. Mark reminds me to have fun. He suggests that success is more likely if I enjoy the experience.

"Having fun starts with starting small so that the garden activity is achievable. It is also important to start with vegetables you and your family love to eat."

I’m going to heed Marks advice and start small by growing a few pots of silverbeet and its pretty relation rainbow chard. By growing in pots I can start growing now and take the pots with us when we make the move towards the end of the year.

I’m going to sow seeds directly into pots filled with potting mix enriched with a little compost, well-rotten manure and rock mineral fertiliser.

The outer leaves should be ready to harvest in only 6 – 7 weeks. I love that silverbeet can be harvested as you need by picking the outer leaves and that plants can go on producing for months and months. I’ve had some plants last for several years.

Twisting the stalks off at the base, rather than cutting, reduces the amount of leaf damage in later pickings. Harvesting this way, from the outside, prevents plants from going to seed.

There seems an endless range of ways to eat silverbeet: quiche, gratin, frittata, lasagne, cannelloni, omelette, pie, soup, or as a simple steamed side. I’m particularly fond of steamed silverbeet with a sprinkle of nutmeg. The young leaves can also be eaten as salad leaves and the stems can be diced and cooked like celery.

With so many ways to prepare Silverbeet, perhaps my family won’t even notice that I’m only serving them one type of green veggie.

If you were to grow one vegetable only, what would it be?

[This column appeared in The Newcastle Herald Weekender magazine 17 November 2012]

A five minute instant raised vegetable garden (2 years later)

The above mint plant was planted in a bag of potting mix more than two years ago. It's still thriving despite neglect. Admittedly - it's probably near impossible to kill mint - but I'm pleased that the five minute instant raised vegetable garden has lasted so long. 

This garden reminds me that growing food doesn't have to be difficult or time-consuming.

I'm planning the food garden at our little farm and am approaching growing our food one step at a time.

We'll be living there full-time by the end of the year and I want to be harvesting at least some of our vegetables by then.

First I'll start a few wicking pots of Silverbeet now so that they will be ready to harvest by the end of the year. I'm going to use both commercial pots and DIY self-watering pots. I'll also grow sprouts on the kitchen bench. Between silverbeet and sprouts, at least we'll have our green vegetables covered.

I'll then have to tackle our water supply before we can grow much more. Our two small dams are already almost empty and the small tank on our shed will hardly supply all our needs. I'm starting to realise just how much easier growing our food was in the city - despite the lead contamination. 

Have you resisted growing your own food because it seems too difficult or time consuming? Have you thought about tackling it one vegetable at a time? 

Growing herbal teas at home

I’ve been guzzling Lemon Balm and Rosemary tea this week. I’ve had a rotten flu and apparently both Lemon Balm and Rosemary have antiviral properties.

To make the tea I pick a few generous sprigs of Lemon Balm and a small sprig of Rosemary, add hot water, and brew for at least 10 minutes.

I love being able to step out into the garden and pick herbs for nourishing homemade tea. Besides Lemon Balm and Rosemary, the only other ‘tea friendly’ herbs I’m growing at the moment are Mint and Lemon Grass, so I’ve decided to make a ‘wish list’ of herbs I’d like to grow for tea.

Herbal teas that are easy to grow at home

• Brahmi
• Chamomile
• Echinacea
• Fennel seeds
• Ginger
• Lemon Balm
• Lemon Grass
• Lemon Verbena
• Mint
• Nettle
• Peppermint
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Stevia
• Thyme
• Tulsi
• Winter Tarragon

What have I missed? What’s your favourite herbal tea? Do you grow any tea herbs at home?

Edited: I've updated the list to include your suggestions. Thank you!

Two roosters and an urban backyard don’t mix

Remember those three cute little chickens I bought on a whim a few months ago? Two of them ended up being roosters.

I suspected as such soon after I got them home. Two of the three had larger combs and liked to perform cute little miniature cock fight dances with each other.

I knew buying five week-old chickens at the markets was not a smart thing to do. The seller claimed that they were too young to be sexed, but I think he was just trying to make a buck out of his roosters before he had to deal with them. He offered to take back any roosters, but could only accept them on the first Saturday of the month (the day before market day).

I’ve watched numerous ‘first Saturdays of the month’ pass without taking action. I was in denial. I was hoping that I had three hens or at the very least was giving them a few more weeks to enjoy life.

Then 6.30am in the morning a few days ago we were woken with a ‘Cock-a-doodle-do’. I lay there hoping I was dreaming. Then another ‘Cock-a-doodle-do’ and another and another. Each louder and prouder than the previous.

One of our neighbours isn’t a fan of us treating our backyard ‘like a farm’. I didn’t enjoy his reaction when he discovered we had bees, so we weren’t prepared to give him time to respond to a couple of roosters waking him up.

Duffa Dilly Bong and Flappy had to go. And quickly.

The ‘eco’ thing to do would be to kill them ourselves and cook them up into a healthy nourishing roast, or at the very least some chicken stock. But we just couldn’t.

Waiting a few weeks until the ‘first Saturday of the month’ also wasn’t an option. So we phoned the seller and asked if he’d take them a few weeks early. No luck.

We’ve taken other much loved hens to the vets, and paid $25 each to have them put down when needed, because killing chooks is not something I could do, and is a task Daddy Eco would prefer to avoid. But we both realised paying $50 to have two young roosters put down is just silly.

So Daddy Eco decided he was going to do the deed. He wasn’t thrilled about the idea – but was willing to give it a go. We were planning a Friday night of online chook killing research when I received an email from Kate and Mark from Purple Pear offering to mind them until the next ‘first Saturday of the month’. (Earlier that day Daddy Eco had called them looking for some chook killing advice, thinking that being farmers, they’d be experienced in such tasks. But we’d momentarily forgotten that they are vegetarian).

With a huge sense of relief we accepted Kate and Mark's offer and dropped the roosters off at their holiday coop.

I’ve been surprisingly sad and bothered by the whole experience. They are both the sweetest little chooks and their sister Emu has since been wandering around our yard in distress looking for her brothers.

From now on I think I’ll stick to buying our chooks at point-of-lay. Chickens are fun, but deciding the fate of roosters is not something I enjoy.

{Moral of the story: If you sneakily buy a few chickens when your husband is away (because you know he would say no) and then he’s the one that has to ‘deal’ with them, you will never ever ever ever hear the end of it}

Would you be able to ‘deal’ with a few roosters? Part of me feels guilty about moving them onto someone else to deal with. They’ll likely spend their last day or so in crowded transport. First to the markets. And then to the abattoirs where they’ll probably be processed into pet food. Killing them in our backyard seems far more humane. Am I being a ‘chicken’ passing their fate onto someone else? Am I causing them unnecessary suffering? Or am I simply making too big a deal over a few roosters?

Introducing Emu, Flappy, and Duffa Dilly Bong

Daddy Eco was away this weekend, and wasn't there to talk sense into Little Eco and I when we spotted three very cute four week old Pekin Bantams at the Farmer's Market.

We had plans to add a couple of Pekins to our backyard flock (because they are so good with kids)....

..perhaps in a year or so....

..at point of lay so that we don't end up burdened with a rooster or two....

..after we've made a few changes so that we can safely eat the eggs despite our yard having lead contamination.

..and definitely not in the next six months, as our chaotic morning rush-hour routine is already full enough.

But how could we resist?

Surely, following your heart rather than your head every now and then is good for you?

Thankfully the seller offers to accept back any roosters and it looks like in the next few weeks I'll be making a few changes to our chook pen and backyard.

How about you? Have you ever bought a pet or farm animal on impulse? Are you glad you went with your heart?